


Never Say I Never Gave You Nothin'

by missjo



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:52:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1206769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missjo/pseuds/missjo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Croc requested fic of Jimmy giving Thomas a platonic massage just because he deserved it and I couldn't get the image out of my head so here we are! About 99% Gen with a 1% chance of pre-slash if you look really hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Say I Never Gave You Nothin'

Bloody Molesley. Molesley had chosen the week of a house party to fall ill. Which meant Thomas had not only had to act as valet for _two_ of the visiting aristocrats but he’d had to play the part of footman as well. All on top of his under butler duties.

Thomas hated to admit his age but even he couldn’t ignore the toll the work was taking on him. When he sat down in his favorite chair that evening his entire back seized up. He grimaced and tried to roll his shoulders but that only seemed to make matters worse. In the end he decided it best to sit straight as a board and smoke his cigarette with as little movement as possible.

When Jimmy sauntered into the room Thomas, not for the first time, hated him for his youthful exuberance. Even though the footman had been run ragged near as much as Thomas he didn’t seem to be showing any great signs of physical exhaustion, despite his loud and varied protests..

“Alright, Mr. Barrow?” Jimmy asked, taking in Thomas’s unnaturally stiff pose with a smirk teasing the corner of his perfect mouth. God, how Thomas hated him.

“Perfectly fine, Jimmy,” he replied wryly and took his time exhaling his smoke. “Just a bit tired.”

Jimmy nodded knowingly and took a seat at the corner of the table. “My feet feel as if they might fall off all together and no mistake. Fancy a game of cards before we go up?”

Thomas desperately wanted to be in bed. If he was honest, never having to move again would be preferable. However, a few minutes alone with Jimmy was always too good a thing for him to pass up. He nodded and went to stand, stopping half way up and groaning at the pain that shot up his spine.

He felt his face warm under Jimmy’s wide eyed attention. He grimaced as he slowly righted himself and walked stiffly over to the table where he perched himself carefully in the nearest chair.

“Well, Mr. Barrow, that won’t due now will it?” Jimmy drawled and set down the cigarette he had been about to light.

Thomas clenched his jaw. He didn’t need Jimmy teasing him just now. “Jimmy,” he warned.

Jimmy stood and rounded the table. “Budge up then,” he commanded very matter-of-factly and gently nudged him forward in his seat. “And take off your jacket.”

Thomas did as he was told without thinking much about it. Before he knew it he was in front of Jimmy in nothing but his shirtsleeves.

“Better,” Jimmy said with a nod and assumed his position behind him.

Then Jimmy’s hands were on his shoulders. Thomas froze at the contact. They hadn’t touched at all since The Incident, not on purpose, at least. The warm feeling of Jimmy’s hands on him was overwhelming even if it wasn’t unwelcome.

“Oi, oi, relax, Mr. Barrow, or else what am I doin’ it for?” Jimmy admonished as he began to massage the tense line of Thomas’s shoulders.

It took a few seconds for Thomas to get his breathing under control. Once he was able to relax he found the rhythmic motion soothing. He closed his eyes and sighed, allowing his head to droop. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had massaged his back -- the Duke, perhaps, but all of those memories were tainted now.

“Me mum used to do this for me when I was sick,” Jimmy said as he pressed his thumbs against the knobby part at the top of his spine.

Thomas’s mum hadn’t had the time to spend so much attention on one child and even if she had he was sure she would not have picked him. “Feels nice,” he groaned as Jimmy’s experienced hands dug out the last of the knots in his shoulders and worked their way down to his shoulderblades.

“I’m glad, Mr. Barrow,” Jimmy replied with rare sincerity in his voice. He began to hum as he worked his way down Thomas’s spine. The humming was so soft that Thomas wondered if Jimmy even knew he was doing it. It wasn’t any melody Thomas recognized.

“Did she sing too?” he asked softly.

Jimmy’s hands stilled for a few seconds and the humming stopped. He glanced over his shoulder and was embarrassed to find tears in the younger man’s eyes. He faced forward quickly and cleared his throat.

“Sorry. I’ve no right to ask.”  
  
Jimmy’s hands resumed their work on the middle of his back. “She did, yes, Mr. Barrow. Her voice were lovelier than mine so you just get the tune, I’m afraid,” he said gruffly.

Thomas shrugged and smiled softly to himself when Jimmy began to hum again. “S’nice.”

Jimmy continued to hum and work his hands down his back. With his eyes closed Thomas could almost forget they were in the servant’s hall and that he had a never ending list of duties he needed to perform.

He allowed his thoughts to wander. He imagined Jimmy younger, not jaded by the war or what had come after, with parents who adored him. He imagined what his mother’s voice might have sounded like, sweeter than his own mother’s gruff undertones, and how she might have looked at him, as if he were the one thing in the world that hung the moon, and he didn’t even feel jealous. Even though Thomas had never had such things, Jimmy had and then he had lost them. Thomas couldn’t envy him that.

Jimmy switched to another soothing melody. His hands continued to work at the tense muscles in his back and Thomas allowed himself to revel in Jimmy touching him. There had been a time when all of his thoughts had been consumed by the possibility of Jimmy’s touches and then there had been the time after when he thought it impossible he should ever feel them at all. Even now he did not allow himself to hope for any meaning of something more in this. Just knowing that he had Jimmy’s friendship, that Jimmy cared enough for him to do this, was enough to make him happier than he had ever been in the past.

Pain jolted his thoughts back to the servant’s hall. He hissed as Jimmy turned his attentions to the tender muscles of his lower back. “Steady on, Mr. Barrow,” he murmured soothingly. Thomas bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from whimpering at the discomfort. “Golly, what did you do to make such a mess of it?”

Thomas choked out a laugh. “Too much, apparently, I don’t know how Carson stands it.”

Jimmy chuckled. “He’s a dried out old fossil without any nerve endings left,” he replied dryly. “You are neither dried out, nor old, and definitely not a fossil.”

He attempted to laugh around another grunt of pain. “M’glad I have your confidence in that.” He was very glad Jimmy didn’t think him old. For Jimmy old truly meant boring, overbearing, _Carson-like_ and he never wanted to be those things to him.

“‘Course. D’you think I’d be giving Mr. Carson a massage?”

Thomas could hear the wry grin in Jimmy’s voice and it made him grin himself. “I’d rather not imagine it, if I’m honest.”

“It would be the stuff of nightmares,” Jimmy told him sagely.

He dug his thumbs into a particularly nasty knot. Thomas rocked forward and gritted his teeth. He whimpered as the knot gave way under Jimmy’s fingers and he felt the rest of his back finally begin to relax.

“That should do it, Mr. Barrow,” Jimmy said then and took a step back from him.

Thomas took a moment to mourn the loss of Jimmy’s hands on him before he sat back up slowly. “Thank you, Jimmy.”

“How d’you feel?”

He took careful stock of himself and found that he truly felt more relaxed. He looked over his shoulder and gave him a small smile. “Much better.”

Jimmy beamed at the praise. “Never say I never gave you nothin’,” he replied happily. “I’m bushed. Good night, Mr. Barrow.”

“Good night, Jimmy.”

That night Thomas slept better and deeper than he had in years with the sounds of Jimmy humming playing through his dreams.


End file.
